This is a booth.
A red phone booth. There are fewer and fewer phone booths around, country or city. Fewer yet, red ones. This one is in Sharbot Lake, Ontario. A small town off of Highway 7 between Peterborough and Ottawa; a good way off the highway. It's not a quick-veer 'roadside attraction.' Deliberate effort is needed to go to Sharbot Lake. I was camping with the kids at, coincidentally named, Sharbot Lake Provincial Park, which is kinda around the corner from the town when I took this photo. We were in the neighbourhood. We went to town to stock up on groceries, visit the thrift shop, and check out the local scene. I used to go here rather regularly as a kid. Friends of my parents were the owners of what I now realize is Sharbot Lake's entire 'entertainment district'. They owned the combined motel, bar and restaurant (self-proclaimed 'European' Restaurant no less. This, because one of the owners was Dutch, not because the French fries were really from France.) As kids, we used to play in the restaurant when it was quiet, jump off the docks behind the motel rooms into the lake (Sharbot Lake), and most fun of all, play in the bar, in the restaurant's basement, when it was closed. Swivel bucket seats, pool tables, juke box, and a soda fountain machine behind the bar were all at our fingertips. Even the cigarette machine (yes, they used to sell cigarette packs in unregulated machines) was a plaything for us; though, honestly, it really was the juke box that got most of our attention. By 'us' I mean, my older sister and myself and the owners' two sons, who were nearly exactly the same age as my sister and I. When my three kids and I were in Sharbot Lake this summer, it had been a good 20 years since I had last been to the town. I was stunned to see this red phone booth still sitting across from the motel/restaurant. That means it has to be at least 35 years since it has been there. As a kid, I was always intrigued by it. Partly because it was a gadget that older people used, and I always wanted to be older than I was (which, as I age, is less and less appealing), it was also like the place where Superman changed from drab to fab in a swirling flash. But out here, in a town in the middle of, well, rocks and trees, and trees and rocks (the Canadian Shield at its most predictable best), my childhood mind always made it seems like this phone booth was a bit of the city in the country. A little bit of excitement, going places, doing things, like in the big city (I'm referring here to Ottawa, as that was the city I knew best; I was living in Aylmer, Quebec at the time). I always expect that the road on which this phone booth sits at the corner of would lead to the 'downtown' of Sharbot Lake, where more things were going on. We never went down that road when we visited the 'entertainment district' owners. This just increased my curiosity. Having now gone there with my kids, I know why we never went when I was younger: there was no use. There are no neon lights, no restaurant district, no movie houses. Just a post office, grocery store, church and municipal services offices. Disappointed? I wasn't. I had long since known that there was little down that road, but the red phone booth still represents 'possibilities' for me. By affixing carefully chosen words to the picture, I wanted to accentuate the impact the booth has had on me. As a picture on its own, I know the meaning it has for me would be lost on any other who would look at it. Photos only gain meaning when we attach words to them: written, verbal, or even the thoughts from our mind. I also know that no matter the amount of words attached, the meaning will still be different. I appreciate and praise that about photography. Still, I nudge with my words, knowing it will not remain fixed; the picture will continue to develop in its own way. Enjoy.
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